RHSEBO: Updated - and expanded to ALL scenarios

[el cid again]

Instead of rebuilding Kongos, Japan wanted to build replacement battleships. Two competative designs were made- and the alternate was preferred by the navy - called Fujimoto. It is an unusual design - and uses 16 inch guns on a 28 knot hull - in two possible configurations. Comments requested on which - and also art.

We also can do an earlier design for Yamato class: the 16 inch options make more sense than the variations actually built. There were two designs with four turrets - a ten gun type (two twins, two triples) and a twelve gun type (four triples). IF we go with the ten gun Fujimoto design - two quads and one twin - then two more options appear: three quads or two qauds and a twin - both three turret designs that would not need new art. Comments requested. All these ships would have more surface gun power than the historical Yamato class - due to the horrible ROF of the 18 combined with the problem that only one turret could fire at a time - reducing ROF still more in practical terms.

I have information on a Soviet order for a battleship - and it was politically decided to licence one construction in the USA - although the details are hidden from us - it would be similar to the Ansaldo UP41 design. Anyone got art? Sovietsky Sojuz was similar. If building this vessel might have appeared in USN.

If Fujimotos were built - do we have any information about a US reply in the same period? One assumes it would be a North Carolina with worse AA. It might be that we simply use North Carolina's. Congress stipulated the USN could have ships only after UK and IJN did.

[el cid again]

Illinois and Kentucky (Iowa numbers 5 and 6) were brought forward from BBO to EBO.

Richeleiu was modified so there are two triple 6 inch turrets on each side (vice one)

but only two twin tirtiaries (vice three) on each side. This is the original design.

These 6 inch are DP guns - IRL and in RHS - but not very effective ones.

[Historiker]

Sowjetsky Soyuz is something like the H-39. A super-BB with 60.000t, 9x16in guns, over 400mm armour...
They started 4 while 15 were planned...
If the construction would have went on with full speed, the first would have entered service around late 42/mid 43

[el cid again]

Yes - but the design was based on an earlier study. The US would not approve a 60 k ton vessel - and required it be recast as a 45 k ton one. This was done but ultimately not delivered by New York Shipbiulding - and the files were destroyed.

But a similar design called UP 41 was done by Ansaldo - and it was delivered in 1937 or 1938. It also was 45 k tons.

If built in the USSR the ships are those that Germany captured - and too late for service. But the earlier plan was to have the lead vessel built in the USA - and then Germany would not capture it. But it also would not be the monsterous 60 k ton version.

The Soviets only started two of the vessels - although the ways to build them still exist - and are still used. It is doubtful that more than four would ever have been built - it would have taken until about 1950 by which time it would be clear that battleships were not the wave of the future. Here I seek only one - and art wise it LOOKs like a Sovietsky Sojuz - it just is smaller. Which is why the 16 inch guns. Stalin wanted 18 inch - and got Sneider to sell him the design for one. It just was not possible to build hulls big enough in the USSR to mount them, and no one else would build them for the USSR.

There was also a German "sale" of 15 inch turrets - 8 twins - for two ships - nominally these were 3 turret ships with spare turrets but in fact the Russians designed four turret ships - sort of Soviet Bismarcks. This was known as Tretij Internacional class - also Stalinskaja Konstitucija.
The Germans never delivered the guns - Only one was laid down - and it isn't known if the engines (from Switzerland) were delivered or not - for either or both? This ship seems too vaporous to rationalize. But more concern about Japan sooner might have let the plan to have the US build the lead - we actually licenced building 3 triple 16 inch turrets and 900 rounds for them - might have had that plan go forward - sooner - on a more modest 45 k hull.

[DuckofTindalos]

Never heard of this Fujimoto design, Sid... Got any sources?

[el cid again]

It is in most references - Battleships and Battlecruisers - The Imperial Japanese Navy - etc.

It is a bit of a revolutionary ship - sort of a short hull Yamato class with wierd secondaries on the fore and after decks -
because of the need for a short citidel requirements. It is a precursor for the last generation of battleship designs -
and really was better than the alternative - drawn up by the senior Navy designer - whose name was Hiraga. [Fujimoto was his assistent]
These ships are always identified by their designers names - or as "Kongo Replacement" and "Ise Replacement" designs - not by
project numbers - which seem not to have been assigned.

[DuckofTindalos]

Yeah, I did some looking around online. Unfortunately ibiblio.org is down at the moment, since Google returned a hit from them (doubly irritating since they've also got some Aleutian campaign material I need), but I dug out an odd drawing:



Looks like the G3/N3/O3 concept taken to an absurd degree...

[DuckofTindalos]

If this was anything near what the IJN intended to build, then I'm glad they didn't. That's just UGLY...[X(]

[DuckofTindalos]

Here's another one, which I think is more along the lines of what you were talking about, Sid:



The drawing definitely has a proportion problem, but still...

[el cid again]

There is an unused North Carolina class definition - because by the time NC entered PTO it had been modified from the original design.
I used this for replacments for Wyoming and Arkansas - and start both at New Orleans - so they will miss the PH attack but come over from Atlantic Fleet immediately.

I also found that USS Wasp should not be completed to a truncated design in these conditions - so she will be a full sister to Yorktown, Enterprise and Hornet.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Here's another one, which I think is more along the lines of what you were talking about, Sid:



The drawing definitely has a proportion problem, but still...

That is the ship. There were two variations - 3 triples or two quads with a supermounted twin. I chose the
latter so it is less topweight and so there is a quad design to use when Yamato comes along. This makes
our revised Yamato class far more practical - but able to use the same game ship art. I also liked the
ten gun version because it has an extra tube - very Japanese (make each ship marginally better than
foreign contemporaries - and the best Western ship around at the time of this design was Nelson with
9 sixteen inch in three triples.

The "ugliness" comes from a serious attempt to honor treaty rules - and if that does not apply - the ships would look
a great deal more like Yamato did - so we can live with that art if need be.

The new scenario looks lovely and essentially has only these changes:

2 CL replace Java and Sumatra

1 BC replaces Soerabaja

All KGV class have three triple 15 inch

2 Lions arrive in 1945

2 additional Iowas arrive in 1945

2 North Carolina early type replace Wyoming and Arkansas

Wasp is done to Yorktown standard

Richelieu is done to original standard

4 Fujimoto's replace Kongo class

All Yamato class have three quad 16 inch

[el cid again]

All I am waiting for is art -

but I am investigating converting the original two US "treaty cruisers" with "paper armor" to CVLs -
they were subject to semi carrier studies as well - and in fact Hiryu was a semi carrier as designed.

But unless something comes of this - or someone has another suggestion - I am done.
I cannot see Chile giving up her BB - it makes her one of the ABC powers to have a battleship.

[el cid again]

Since EBO is EEO modified,

USN gets many additional carriers (2 additional Essex, 6 additional Independence)
[The Midways are laid as Essex class; more CLs are converted to CVLs - FDR wanted
ALL CLs so converted!!]

2 Alaska's appear early as Baltimores - if they come as Alaska class they are very late -
but as Baltimores they are around long enough to matter - anybody want them as BC??
[More correctly as CB]

and the non trivial bit about 50 per cent more aircraft than were sent to PTO

as well as two atomic bombs per month.

Several obsolete Allied aircraft are replaced with more useful ones - their air groups
use newer planes when they appear. There is no P-26 for example - and the PPAF
uses the P-35 instead. The USMC biplane bomber is gone - and the unit uses a later
monoplane one instead. Stuff like that. This scenario will require EOS aircraft art for Japan.
All other art is always present - used or not.

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

They are nice guns though - accuracy = 25 - because ROF is 2.5 rounds per minute - and range = 45 - very nice.

The big problem is the gun mountings - both primary and secondary - were not to be available until 1943 - if there was no war. But since the guns themselves were earlier designs - and since Bofors was hungry during the depression - I was able to rationalize a way that earlier design work could have completed in time for the lead ship (the war preventing the sisters getting their guns - or even their hulls completed).

We already had a name - de Zeven Provencien - which seems very fitting given the significance explained to us by a Dutch poster.

I always thought Krupp had offered them the gun/turret combination from the Scharnhorst class - Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer certainly has it like that. Maybe the turret design was deemed too sensitive for export - Schmalenbach in "Geschichte der deutschen Schiffsartillerie" (History of German naval artillery) remarks that the German navy shied off triple turrets because conventional designs had problems with ammo supply to the center gun which lowered overall ROF, but that the triple 28 cm turrets had a special configuration of IIRC the transfer tables in the handling room which sped up ammo handling. NAVWEAPS gives the ROF of the Scharnhorst installation as 3.5/min, and that of the guns for the Netherlands BCs as 2.5/min, so possibly the design for the Dutch was "dumbed down".
Now it seems to me that if you accelerate the delivery of the BC, you might pretend that Germany had sold the Scharnhorst type guns to the Dutch which would certainly speed up delivery as the design was finished - Krupp or whoever would only have to build the things. That would entail changing the gun parameters - range = 45 and accuracy = 35, making them even more of a threat to CA's. BTW, Breyer says that the design iterations using the German guns were to have a speed of 34 kts, but that difference is probably only academic.

BTW, "de Zeven Provincien" is a very fitting name for the ship not just for the reason you mentioned, it was also the name of de Ruyter's flagship in several important battles and therefore a legendary ship's name in its own right - in the same rank as HMS Victory or USS Constitution or USS Enterprise. The Batavia yard in Lelystad is currently constructing a full-size replica of the ship, expected to be finished by 2015. (see Dutch Wikipedia)

[el cid again]

Japanese BC were replies to the Alaska design. Ironically, the Alaska was a "reply" to a fictional but feared Japanese
BC - or pocket battleship like the Graf Spee. But if the Dutch REALLY HAVE a BC - might Japan decide to go for
some of its own? The problem is material and labor as always - but in leiu of later Yamatos they mgiht be possible
in time for the war. Adm Yamamoto in particular opposed even Musashi - and certainly Shinano.

[He said approximately: "There are three great follies in history: the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China and the battleship Musashi"]

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

I ended up using the existing 11 inch gun slot for old Soerabaja - a pre dreadnaught serving as a coast defense ship. So this ship too is gone.

Found this in the Dutch Wikipedia: the Soerabaja was originally named "De Zeven Provincien"; it was renamed after a mutiny in 1933.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: mikemike

ORIGINAL: el cid again

They are nice guns though - accuracy = 25 - because ROF is 2.5 rounds per minute - and range = 45 - very nice.

The big problem is the gun mountings - both primary and secondary - were not to be available until 1943 - if there was no war. But since the guns themselves were earlier designs - and since Bofors was hungry during the depression - I was able to rationalize a way that earlier design work could have completed in time for the lead ship (the war preventing the sisters getting their guns - or even their hulls completed).

We already had a name - de Zeven Provencien - which seems very fitting given the significance explained to us by a Dutch poster.

I always thought Krupp had offered them the gun/turret combination from the Scharnhorst class - Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer certainly has it like that. Maybe the turret design was deemed too sensitive for export - Schmalenbach in "Geschichte der deutschen Schiffsartillerie" (History of German naval artillery) remarks that the German navy shied off triple turrets because conventional designs had problems with ammo supply to the center gun which lowered overall ROF, but that the triple 28 cm turrets had a special configuration of IIRC the transfer tables in the handling room which sped up ammo handling. NAVWEAPS gives the ROF of the Scharnhorst installation as 3.5/min, and that of the guns for the Netherlands BCs as 2.5/min, so possibly the design for the Dutch was "dumbed down".
Now it seems to me that if you accelerate the delivery of the BC, you might pretend that Germany had sold the Scharnhorst type guns to the Dutch which would certainly speed up delivery as the design was finished - Krupp or whoever would only have to build the things. That would entail changing the gun parameters - range = 45 and accuracy = 35, making them even more of a threat to CA's. BTW, Breyer says that the design iterations using the German guns were to have a speed of 34 kts, but that difference is probably only academic.

BTW, "de Zeven Provincien" is a very fitting name for the ship not just for the reason you mentioned, it was also the name of de Ruyter's flagship in several important battles and therefore a legendary ship's name in its own right - in the same rank as HMS Victory or USS Constitution or USS Enterprise. The Batavia yard in Lelystad is currently constructing a full-size replica of the ship, expected to be finished by 2015. (see Dutch Wikipedia)

Breyer went through at least three editions and is also translated - and sometimes it changes its tune a bit. I tend to follow Breyer - but cross consulted with Conway on this matter. As for guns I use Campbell - it is a standard because it covers all Navies. HE tells a more complex tale: the guns were not really the same for Deutchland (Graf Spee) - Scharnhorst and for the Dutch - at least in terms of turret mountings.
I used the Dutch specified Bofors turret - but had to estimate the weight from the armor - which is in between the two German designs.
It appears ALL Dutch naval weapons were really Bofors - even when the guns were something else - often German or British. Anyway - I was pretty satisfied with the data - but I did in the end have to make an estimate - an educated guess - partly because the ships as really designed were too late to build for WWII. I looked at the state of affairs when they had to be built just to make the game (ah, war) - and decided that if politics could justify it - the RNN design would have been substantially similar to Design 1 and there would be no time to modify it significantly - until mid war - after which it would go over to US radar and AA concepts - as all Dutch ships did. Since there were 3 official designs - and this is not any of them - the speed is a bit iffy. But 34 is a possibility for an early not heavily loaded design.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: mikemike

ORIGINAL: el cid again

I ended up using the existing 11 inch gun slot for old Soerabaja - a pre dreadnaught serving as a coast defense ship. So this ship too is gone.

Found this in the Dutch Wikipedia: the Soerabaja was originally named "De Zeven Provincien"; it was renamed after a mutiny in 1933.

Talk about irony - and we are exchanging Soeraba ex de Zeven Provincien for yet another de Zeven Provincien - and have yet another de Zeven Provincien as a CL with yet another name variation - actually two CLs because both also had that name at one time or another. This must be the right name for the BC - surely the Dutch like it and would give it to the big boy on the block (er in the water).

But did the Dutch really have a mutiny in 1933? Seems unlikely.

[DuckofTindalos]

It's true nonetheless...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNLMS_De_Z ... 08-1943%29

[el cid again]

I found that a Soviet BB building in the USA after the war began would not be wanted any longer by the USSR, and would be sold for things they did want. The USN - on the other hand - would be delighted to get a modified South Dakota - particularly as the weapons were US calibers. It is the only WWII era US battleship with true secondary guns - but as they are turret mounted they can be exchanged for secondary DP guns mid war. The ship appears in the spring of 1942 - when it is undoubtedly most welcome. I named her in honor of the never built USS Montana. Like all US WWII era BB she has nine 16 inch guns.